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Explained: Difference Between Dark Web, Deep Net, Darknet and More

by John Lister on September, 11 2018 at 02:09PM EDT

Have you heard of the Deep Web, Dark Net, Dark Web, or Dark Market while
surfing the Internet? What is the difference? Is there a difference?

In each case, these are technical terms used to describe various parts of the
Internet that are not normally accessible to users using a standard web browser.
Below we'll describe the differences using easy to understand key examples.

Deep Web

In the most simplest terms, the Deep Web is any web page that is not indexed
by a search engine.

Let's look an example. A Deep Web can be your bank account details, after
you've logged in securely to your online banking website. While the online
banking site can be seen by the general public (and its website name and address
indexed by a search engine), what cannot be seen by the public is the
information available after you are securely logged in.

Other examples of the Deep Web include using the TOR Browser to access .onion
websites which are neither indexed by Google or available using a standard web
browser.

Dark Net or "Darknet"

In its original meaning, the
Dark Net refers to any device connected to the Internet which has an IP
address, but has no active services running on that IP address.

The Infopackets website runs on a server located in Buffalo, New York,
operated by a web server hosting company. Like many dedicated web servers, this
machine has been assigned a subnet of publicly available IP addresses in a
CIDR
range, denoted by 23.250.11.136/29.

The IP address range is therefore 23.250.11.136 to 23.250.11.143, though the
first two addresses (23.250.11.136 and 23.250.11.137) are reserved for the
network and gateway, while the last IP (23.250.11.143) is reserved for
broadcasting. That leaves a total of 5 IP addresses available for use
(23.250.11.138 to 23.250.11.142).

If you were to ping infopackets.com using an administrative command
prompt, the Infopackets server will respond with an IP address of 23.250.11.141
because that IP has been assigned to run the apache web server which serves web
pages, like the one you're viewing now. Click here to see an
example of a ping.

Also assigned is a name
server service (responsible for mapping IP addresses to services on the
Infopackets server), which operates on 23.250.11.142 and is publicly named
ns2.infopackets.com. If you were to ping the remaining IPs (23.250.11.138 to
23.250.11.139), there would be no response because those IP addresses have not
been assigned to any services.

With that said, the Dark Net is often used interchangeably with Dark Web, even if this isn't always strictly accurate.

Dark Web

The Dark Web on the other hand refers to a specific section of the Deep Web.

The Dark Web isn't just hidden from search engines, but instead is specifically designed to be
inaccessible from most web browsers. Usually it requires special browsing software,
which makes it harder to track the path data takes online.

TOR Network

The TOR Network is the best known software for accessing many sites on the Dark
Web.

TOR stands for The Onion Router, which refers to an analogy about
onions having multiple layers of skin. In simple terms, data going through the TOR network doesn't take the most efficient route, which is normally the main goal of the Internet.

Legality

While rules vary around the world, as a general principle visiting the Deep Web or
Dark Web is not illegal. Neither is using deep web technologies such as TOR to anonymize web use. However,
anyone using a Darknet Market remains subject to local laws, depending on what you can and can't buy, sell, ship or possess.